Anonymous Freak's Journal: Last Journal entry was "One Month on iPhone" - might as well do "One Week Back"

And I mean it. I have now been using an original iPhone (aka "iPhone 2G") for a week as my primary personal cell phone.

I got a work phone that satisfied 99% of my usage, but I've had my personal cell phone number since 1997, having ported it between carriers numerous times. I passed my personal phone down to my son (who had an old iPhone 3G that he basically used as an out-of-date iPod touch that we activated for his 9th birthday as "emergency cell phone".) He was ecstatic about the upgrade.

But there was one problem: my plan had been to port my long-owned personal number to Google Voice, and just have it ring my work cell (and use the Google apps for text messaging on it.) But for some reason, Google Voice says my number can't be ported. (Maybe I've ported it too many times? It's on T-Mobile right now, which is the carrier I started on (when it was VoiceStream Wireless.) Well, with the port-to-Google shot down, I realized I would still need SOMETHING to send/receive text messages to people who have that as my primary number. (I forwarded my voice calls to my work phone.) So, what better than a little nostalgia? Dug out the old original iPhone - purchased launch day 2007 on a lark. I wasn't planning on getting one, I was just visiting my crazy friend who had waited in line over night right before the store opened - and he offered to let me "take his second". (Apple Stores were allowing you to buy up to two phones. He only wanted one, and he didn't want to be accused of letting me cut in line, so he just bought it and immediately sold it to me.)

I had the battery replaced a few years ago, when my son was using IT as an "obsolete iPod touch", but then nearly immediately put it in to storage as he got upgraded to the retired-from-my-use iPhone 3G. It is in nearly flawless physical condition (a slight ding in the Aluminum case on the side directly opposite the mute slider is all.) I loaded up Whited00r, a Jailbroken custom firmware that visually and functionally emulates iOS 7. That gave me a modern look and feel, plus most of the under-the-covers useful features (MMS, which Apple never officially supported on the original iPhone, etc.) Loaded up Twitter and Facebook, for LOLs. They still work just fine.

Yes, EDGE is slow, but it's passable for MMS, Facebook, and Twitter. All in all, it works reasonably well, even 7 years on.

I also dug out my official Apple Bluetooth Headset, but the battery has long since had its day - it lasts about 3 hours of STANDBY time, which means I only turn it on for my morning and evening commutes. (And really, since my phone number is forwarded to my work phone, and my work phone pairs to my speakerphone, it's only for making outbound calls to people who wouldn't recognize, or I don't want to have, my work number.)

It's kind of funny, because when I got my first smartphone (a Symbian S60 device,) I thought "wow, I might do more 'not talking on it as a phone' on this than using it as a phone!" Yet going back to the iPhone, I find I'm using it more for talking and texting than anything else. Although there have been a couple times that I have used IT for web browsing, Facebook, or Twitter over my work phone - just because I could.